Florence Journal

Welcome to the Florence Journal

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Don't miss our searchable map of Florence - you can find restaurants, hotels, museums and more. We also have links to lots of other great maps of Florence to help you plan your visit here.

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Florence-Journal.com is about living in Florence. How to get here, how to live here legally, where to eat, what to do, where to shop, and where to go on the weekends. Of course it is also about Italian wine and Italian food - why live in Italy if you don't enjoy these things? We hope you find some useful information here - thanks for visiting.

I grandi bronzi del Battistero

There is a stunning new show up at the Bargello, "I grandi bronzi del Battistero" of the renaissance sculptor Vincenzo Danti. The centerpiece is the trio of statues depicting the beheading of John the Baptist that were formerly displayed outside the Baptistry here in Florence. Alice (the 7 year old) and I popped in yesterday after school and were thrilled by these works, including the several by Michelangelo that are included as context to Danti's sculptures. The exhibit is running now until September 7th - I highly recommend it.

Still looking for the Battle of Anghiari

Maurizio Seracini is still looking for the legendary da Vinci painting in the Palazzo Vecchio - I hope he finds it:

"The fresco was long presumed lost forever behind the new paintings. But Maurizio Seracini, an Italian expert in high-technology art analysis, will soon deploy the cutting-edge science of a neutron generator and gamma ray detector in an attempt to prove that the mural is actually preserved beneath a wall built just in front of it during the remodelling.

Florence gives 10,000 laptops to Africa

"Q.What other plans do you have in mind?

A. One is a global Give One, Get One program. Another thing we're looking at is twinning (a cooperative arrangement between an affluent city and another in a developing country). The first city to twin is Florence, Italy, twinning 10,000 laptops with three African cities. We have a number of cities - they tend to be European at the moment - that would twin with other cities."

This is cool - good for Florence. I couldn't imagine the uproar in the US if small cities started doing this kind of stuff.

Tram vote update

According to the AP, "Florence residents voted against a plan to have trams rumbling through the city's historic center and past the medieval cathedral, results showed Monday. But city authorities said the project would go ahead."

The turnout was low, and the vote against was 54%. This thing is happening - the vote was non-binding.

Latest in the Tramvia wars

The Times has a story today about the Tramvia:

"Thousands of protesters are to throng the streets of Florence tomorrow before a local referendum on a new tram system that some conservationists say will cause irretrievable damage to the city's mediaeval and Renaissance treasures."

It has the usual quotes for and against - blah, blah. The Tram is a good idea in our opinion. It is better than buses, better than cars, and none of the arguments I have heard against hold much water once you dig a little deeper into them.

Italian politics...

are just a mess, sadly. Not really much else to add to this thought but a couple of links: Fight Brews in Italy Over New Elections and Crisis talks go on in Italy after collapse of Prodi government.

I'll add that all countries have their own problems - but Italy seems to be the sort of place that most Europeans love to visit, but wouldn't want to move too.

Row over Florence’s Light Rail

Good article about the light rail system - specifically opposition to it - in Corriere Della Sera:

"But with work on Line 1 under way, and about to commence on the other two lines, a gaggle of citizens’ committees supported by part of the radical Left and Centre-right has appeared to protest at the cutting down of trees, the high costs and the many inconveniences to residents, as well as the most serious charge of all: the violence to the city’s artistic heritage alleged to be caused by the light rail passing close to the Baptistery, a stone’s throw from the Cathedral. The upshot is a consultative referendum, scheduled for 17 February, which has split the city and could halt work."

River to River Indian Film Festival

The River to River Indian Film Festival starts tomorrow night at the Gambrinus theater on Piazza Repubblica. This looks like a really interesting event - we are hoping to go at least one night.

Off season villa rentals in Tuscany

A new MSNBC article "Affordable European deals during the winter" has this nugget:

"Check out www.rentvillas.com, where rates drop almost by half in the low season. A villa in the Val di Pesa region of South Florence, which can accommodate up to 6 people, starts at $585 a week — that’s just $97 per person! High season rates are about $1,100 a week. This Tuscan villa is located in a rural area surrounded by vineyards and olive groves. A medieval farmhouse in Val d'Elsa in the province of Siena can accommodate up to six people, and even includes maid service. At $870 a week, compared to $1,690 in the high season, it’s an unbeatable deal. You might have to bring your sweater, but you'll be Italy surrounded by your friends and family in the Tuscan countryside."

I would caution potential renters to inquire about the heating bill however! It can add up quickly here -

Giant Truffle Auctioned for $330,000

This is sort of funny - I mean I love truffles and we had plenty this fall - but to think you would pay that much money for something that someone dug out of the ground:

"FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — A Macau casino mogul bid a record $330,00 at auction Saturday to win a giant white truffle dug up in Tuscany, organizers said.

Billionaire Stanley Ho made the winning bid for the 3.3 pound truffle during an auction staged simultaneously in Florence, London and at Ho's Grand Lisboa hotel in Macau, said auction organizer Giselle Oberti.

The price bested the previous record for a truffle of $212,000, she said.

The unusually heavy truffle was dug up last week by truffle hunter Cristiano Savini, his father Luciano and dog Rocco in Palaia, a town about 25 miles from Pisa. The Savinis said Rocco started sniffing "like crazy" when he zeroed in on the fungus."

Florence Marathon this Sunday

If you are planning any travel in or around Florence this weekend make a note that on Sunday morning at 9:00 AM the Florence marathon starts at Piazzale Michelangiolo. Many streets around Florence will be closed, probably into the afternoon. More information can be found here.

$450 & up: Alitalia fares to Rome, Florence & more Italy (round-trip)

Alitalia has just announced some excellent deals on winter travel to some of the top cities in Italy (and the rest of Europe). Round-trip fares start from just $450 and include travel from Boston, Chicago, or New York to destinations like Venice, Rome, Florence, and more. Travel is valid through March 28 and requires a Saturday-night stay. Just be sure to book soon for the best availability, and no later than Nov. 30.

Court upholds life sentences on former SS officers

From AFP:

An Italian court of final appeal upheld life sentences against three former Nazi officers convicted in the 1944 massacre of 560 Italian civilians in Tuscany, the ANSA news agency reported.

The case was reopened to examine whether testimony from soldiers may have been tainted because they were allegedly accomplices in the massacre.

The officer and two lieutenants were convicted in absentia in June 2005 by a military tribunal in the northern city of La Spezia, along with seven other Nazis, for the massacre in the small Tuscan town of Sant'Anna di Stazzema, near Lucca, a few days after British forces liberated Florence.

Five of the original 10 appealed the convictions, which were upheld in November 2006.

They launched a further appeal, but two have since died. The survivors are Gerhard Sommer and George Rauch, born in 1921, and Karl Gropler, born in 1923, according to ANSA.

The SS division they belonged to was retreating from an advance of British and American troops who had landed in Salerno, southern Italy, on September 3, 1943.

The SS men were under orders to follow a scorched earth policy.

About 1,000 people took refuge in Sant'Anna, a mountain town about 40 kilometres from Lucca.

On August 12, 1944, four SS companies guided by Italian fascist forces rounded up the 560 people including 120 children and machine-gunned them in front of the church.

The appeals court decision comes a few days after US film director Spike Lee began making a film on the massacre.

The art of 15th century Ferrara, Italy, reassessed in a dazzling show

It seems that everyone is dumping of Florence today :)

"Great and splendid is Florence, yet the worth of all her heaped-up treasures does not equal Ferrara's jewels," declares a character in Goethe's drama on the life of the Ferrara court poet Tasso.

All kidding aside, this sounds like an interesting exhibit:

"Cosmè Tura and Francesco del Cossa: Art at Ferrara in the Age of Borso d'Este" at Palazzo dei Diamanti and Palazzo Schifanoia (until Jan. 6). This temporary return of more than 150 paintings, sculptures, illuminated manuscripts, drawings and other pieces from over 70 international public and private collections is curated by Natale Mauro with the aid of other specialists, and offers a lucid reassessment of the epoch and its leading personalities."

Renaissance Siena: Art for a City

Good article about this exhibit at the National Gallery in London, with some interesting historical notes:

"The Black Death, with all its pestilential potency, arrived on the Italian peninsula in early 1348 and, within a few months, some towns and cities had lost almost all their inhabitants. In Venice and Pisa, at least three-quarters died. Florence was so devastated that, for a long time, the disease was known as "the plague of Florence". In Siena, it raged from April until October and, according to one chronicler, 80,000 people died in those seven months, among them the great painters Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti. The corpses, swollen with buboes, were pitchforked into common graves "like layers of lasagne". Work on Siena's cathedral - intended to rival the duomo of Florence in magnificence - was halted. Its truncated transept still stands as witness to the plague's abrupt intrusion into human plans. So do the many chronicles that end suddenly at this time, as their authors succumbed to the deadly miasma. Giovanni Villani wrote "and this pestilence lasted until -", but he died before he could fill in the blank. The present, as well as the future, seemed literally to be vanishing."

Corriere della Sera

Corriere della Sera is a respected newspaper here in Italy. I wasn't aware that they had a English language version of their website until today - it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the Italian version, but still pretty good if you can't read Italian.

Florence's statues rot from pollution

The Telegraph is reporting that Giambologna's Rape of The Sabines may need to be placed indoors sooner rather than later if it is to be saved.

This is an ongoing question here in Florence and I am sure around the world where outdoor art is in danger. Personally I see no problem with copies - this sculpture, as well as the Perseus, both in the Loggia, are semi-exposed to the elements 24/7. They are not going to last forever where they are, and would make magnificent additions to the under visited Bargello museum. Also, the idiots who insist on leaning against them for photo ops and touching them, etc. wouldn't be ruining them. Housed in a museum, they may last another 500 years.

When in Florence

New article today in the NY Sun about Florence in general (shopping, dining, lodging). Most of it is pretty good - but the author talks about the Santo Spirito area as a place to stay with no mention of the recent problems in the piazza, closing of the church, etc.

From the article:

"The cobblestoned streets of Florence are often so clogged with tourists that it's difficult for a first-time visitor to hear Italian spoken amid the hum of English, German, and Japanese, let alone find the corners of the city where locals pass the hours. Having worked in Italy's Renaissance jewel for three months, I learned that Florentines, unlike tourists, won't shell out $12 for gelato. Instead of walking through the crowded historic center, residents bicycle along side streets and in parks at the city's outskirts. And they opt to buy mortadella bologna in grocery stores or the central market, not in expensive macellerie, or butcher shops. I learned to navigate the city like a local. When experienced in this manner, a visitor can see beyond Florence's veneer — thick with crowded museums and overpriced pastas — and, at least temporarily, join the ranks of a boisterous, hearty community that is distinctly Italian."

More here.

Who knew?

I never heard of this replica of the David before:

St. Augustine, Fla. (Oct. 16, 2007) - An exact replica of Michelangelo's 'David,- an 18-foot tall hand-carved marble statue weighing 20,000 pounds has arrived at Castle Warden, home of Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, and will soon take a place of honor in the Castle's award-winning gardens....

It took the world famous Sollazzini and Sons Studio of Florence, Italy nearly three years (1960-1962) to carve the stunning statue for the 1963 New York World's Fair. Following the exhibition, it was acquired by California millionaire Ron Fong
and installed in the gardens at the Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park, Calif. from 1965 to the present. In its 40-plus years in America it has been seen by millions and acknowledged as a wonder of artistic craftsmanship.

Florence divided over £500m tram scheme

I am not sure if this is a crazy idea or not - there is a ton of bus traffic around the Duomo and the rest of town as it is - it wouldn't seem like the addition of the rail traffic (which would I hope cut down on some of the bus traffic) would make that much of a difference. It will probably be quieter and cleaner. And I have learned that the far right will exploit anything here to make some noise and get attention (for an example see the Amato story about the Da Vinci):

Florence, the city that houses a large part of Italy's - and Europe's - cultural heritage, is bitterly divided over plans for new tram lines that would slice through its famous Piazza del Duomo, the cathedral square. The first rails are to be laid next week as part of a €700m (£500m) scheme that would give Florence three lines, running for a total of about 12 miles. The second line would run from the airport through the cathedral square, the Piazza del Duomo.

More here.